Using agroecology to enhance dietary diversity

After briefly defining agroecology and sustainable diets, the paper highlights specific examples of agroecological practices that increase the availability of and access to dietary diversity by enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem functions, promoting soil conservation, protecting watersheds, limiting the use of agrochemicals, re-localising the production, distribution and consumption of food within specific territories, and enabling fair access to dietary diversity and inclusion in food systems. By reorganising the material basis of the food system in the image of nature, the agroecological practices highlighted in this paper are generative of dietary diversity. However, although agroecology can increase the availability and quality of and access to dietary diversity for healthy nutrition, it should not be seen as a ‘technical fix’ by policymakers. Diversity on the farm does not automatically lead to diversity on the plate. More than agroecology, alone, is required to ensure fair access to dietary diversity in society. Gender- equitable rights of access and use of land, trees and their products, water and seeds, as well as socially inclusive forms of economic exchange, are all needed in addition to shifts in the balance of power and entitlements to realise the right to food and nutrition for all